In many wireless communication networks, user equipments (UEs) may run background applications which require sending data to an evolved Node B (eNB) in small amounts and/or infrequently. In some networks, such as long-term evolution (LTE) networks, there are two mechanisms for the UE to request an allocation of uplink channel resources on which to send data to the eNB. One is for the UE to send a message to the eNB on a random access channel, and the other is for the UE to send a scheduling request (SR) to the eNB in a resource element of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) assigned to the UE as part of an SR allocation. It may be desirable to keep UEs running background applications in a radio resource control (RRC) connected state in order to avoid signaling overhead of frequent connection and disconnection with the network to send data for the background applications. Accordingly, an SR allocation must be assigned to the UE. However, for UEs running background applications, only a small number of the SR allocation slots are used by the UE.